There are certain divisions where there is a clear individual favorite and this race is no different.
St. Helena junior
Harper McClain (DeAnna Turner photo above) may be new to Cross Country but she has certainly proven herself over the past year. During the spring Track and Field season, Harper recorded personal bests of 5:01.04 and 10:29.68 and finished in 7th place at the California state meet in the 3200m. Earlier this season, Harper finish in 3rd place at the Clovis Invitational Championship race with a time of 17:10.2. If you look at all the past Division V results, only one Division V athlete has posted a faster time on the Woodward Park course, four-time state champion,
Jordan Hasay. She ran 17:05 as a junior in 2007 and for good measure also posted the four fastest times by a Division V athlete (17:05, 17:11, 17:15 and 17:18). Her main competition should come from
Village Christian junior,
Mia Barnett, the three-time Southern Section champion. She finished in 2nd place at last year's state meet and is looking to finish one place higher this Saturday.
St. Margaret's freshman
Liesel Blau finished in 2nd place behind Barnett at the SS Divisional final and will be looking to score important team points for her team that is contention for the state team crown.
Crystal Springs Uplands School freshman
Kaiya Brooks won the CCS final and was followed by last year's 5th place finisher,
Castilleja senior,
Tevah Gevelber.
San Francisco University freshman
Maya Mason and
Lick-Wilmerding senior
Mira Terdiman finished in 2nd and 3rd at the NCS MOC meet and should both be in the top 10 on Saturday. The 10th place finisher at last year's state meet,
Alaina Zamorano of El Cajon Christian, is a two-time SDS individual champion and has improved her times for most courses from last season.
Team competition
Last year, the Lick-Wilmerding girls won their first state cross country team title as they edged St. Margaret's by 5 points. They are the strong favorite to repeat this Saturday as they returned 6 girls from that team and appear to be an even stronger team this season. At last week's NCS MOC meet, the L-W girls outpaced their city rival San Francisco University HS 38 to 59 as they won their 5th section title and 3rd in a row. University was missing their 3rd runner, Eileen Gu, who is also a world-class pro slopestyle skier. She will compete for University at the State Meet and will definitely give them a puncher's chance to knock off the defending champion Tigers. As mentioned above, St. Margaret's finished in 2nd place in 2018 and will be aiming for another podium finish after corralling a second consecutive Southern Section title last Saturday. They will need to fend off a few other teams that will also target a top 3 finish. Among those teams will be Head-Royce (3rd at NCS MOC), Santa Fe Christian (SDS champions) and Castilleja (CCS champions).